We can't really rule out aliens, actually. We can only say that humankind has not yet encountered any intelligent aliens at any time discussed in the books.

But it's obvious that the people of the Duniverse believed it was possible:

FH in CoD wrote:They were undoubtedly sincere in subscribing to the argument that nuclear weapons were a reserve held for one purpose: defense of humankind should a threatening "other intelligence" ever be encountered.

The fact that FH made a distinction between "native" and "terraform" life is shown by this quote from Dune, I believe:

There was a rare native root plant that grew above the 2,500 meter level in the northern temperate zone. A tuber two meters long yielded half a liter of water. And there were the terraform desert plants: the tougher ones showed signs of thriving if planted in depressions lined with dew precipitators.

Here's another tidbit:

He seemed to listen for a moment to a man down the table who was explaining to the Duke that native Arrakeen plants had no thorns.

And here are the entries from the "Terminology" that specifically mention lifeforms "native" to a particular planet.

SandChigger wrote:WTF? Pay fucking attention, moron. Not every form of life in the Dune books is descended from Terrestrial life. Period.

Chig’s a bit hostile, huh? In Brazil we say: "Apelou, perdeu!" which can be roughly translated as: if you're shouting, that's because you're losing! LOL.

But, come on, Chig, you know that the bio/ecological aspect of the Chronicles is a minor one. It is simply not important enough to justify you digging into science to understand it better. It is not worth your time. So you can ignore us when we talk about the subject. Believe me, you'll not be losing too much.

That said, if you want to comment, you have to read some more. Just so people don't call me unhelpful, i'll answer your comment, but i really think it is a waste of time. You see, i do not pretend to know much about biology and don't want to talk about a subject i know only in the shallow, but you suck so much at it that you make me seem erudite hahahahahahah!

SandChigger wrote:The fact that FH made a distinction between "native" and "terraform" life is shown by this quote from Dune

Would you agree with me that the common Red Kangaroo is "native" from Australia? But still, the first marsupials didn't appear in Australia, but in China. According to your reasoning, we should say that the Red Kangaroo is NOT descendant from a chinese animal? Or we should say that the Kangaroo is chinese? But wait! Both Kangaroo and all other land animals come from ocean dwelling creatures! Should we say that none of Earth's lifeforms is "native" in terrestrial environments, being aquatic all of them?

The fact that a given species evolves to adapt to a given environment is no proof that it originates in that environment. In a theoretic universe with plenty of planets, it is completely plausible that organisms from one planet would evolve into novel species once transplanted from one planet to the other, exactly as Earth organisms have for example done when moved from one continent to another. And that could happen actually fast given the right circumstances. No matter how many quotes you find where a given organism is said to be "native", there still remains the possibility that it actually is a grand-grandson of an earthling.

That said, there are lots of crappy scifi authors that simply assume that life that did completely evolve in another planet would be pretty much like earth life, anyways, and that this does not matter too much let's just go on with the story. That you could eat an alien and it would probably be nutritive. Even if Frank does this from time to time, i think the quote about "protein incompatibility" at least alludes to another point of view.

Namely, a point of view that assumes that, given a completely different evolution history, an alien lifeform is bound to be different from us in ways that we can't expect, maybe can't even comprehend. In a way, i think the whole "worm life-cycle", almost devoid of an plausible explanation -- i mean, come on, where do those worms get their energy from? this Liet guy spends his whole life studying them and he does not get a hint? -- this whole life-cycle thing is made to show this. That, and Frank was also lazy.

Anyway, the thing about the sandtrout existing in another planet where it could not progress into worm-phase is flawed, if we assume the Appendix 1 is correct about the worm phase being the reproduction stage of the species. Yes, it could be mistaken, but somehow this seems too ad-hoc to me...

And, loremaster, please note that at least a fraction of the "techno-bable" you attribute to me is actually from Frank the Man himself (sorry if i am being too orthodox ; - ). But, to be sincere, i think you lack reading into biology just like our dear Chig.

PS.: Chig i'm getting to you! BFF! Love and Kisses hahahahahhaha!

Marcio (mrpsbrk) does believe in Lord Leto over all other wills and reasons

MUAD'DIB: the adapted kangaroo mouse of Arrakis, a creature associated in the Fremen earth-spirit mythology with a design visible on the planet's second moon. This creature is admired by Fremen for its ability to survive in the open desert.

Says in Dune the kangaroo mouse was adapted. Meaning it was a Terran lifeform.

But you have fun wanking yourself with your longhair bullshit and overanalysis. Fuckwit.

MUAD'DIB: the adapted kangaroo mouse of Arrakis, a creature associated in the Fremen earth-spirit mythology with a design visible on the planet's second moon. This creature is admired by Fremen for its ability to survive in the open desert.

Says in Dune the kangaroo mouse was adapted. Meaning it was a Terran lifeform.

But you have fun wanking yourself with your longhair bullshit and overanalysis. Fuckwit.

That was fast! Man, you must get a life.

Anyways, i just posted the link couse the mouse is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cute!

PS.: i noticed you ignored most of my arguments and simply pretended that your previous posts still hold some whiff of sense after my reply.

Marcio (mrpsbrk) does believe in Lord Leto over all other wills and reasons

And, loremaster, please note that at least a fraction of the "techno-bable" you attribute to me is actually from Frank the Man himself (sorry if i am being too orthodox ; - ). But, to be sincere, i think you lack reading into biology just like our dear Chig.

I consider my biology to be somewhat somewhat above average.

Dr. Adam Hutchinson, Ph.D in Molecular Genetics (Research into the ALT pathway of Telomere Lengthening, and its possible use as a therapeutic target in cancers). MRes. ( using drosophila models of circadian rhythms and possible uses of circadian rhythms to enhance cancer pharmaceutical treatments), also did some placement work researching the inclusion of Exon 14 as a promotor of invasion in DCIS cases of breast cancer University of Leicester 2007, Now full Time A level Biology Teacher. Groby College, Leicestershire.

loremaster wrote:Dr. Adam Hutchinson, Ph.D in Molecular Genetics (Research into the ALT pathway of Telomere Lengthening, and its possible use as a therapeutic target in cancers). MRes. ( using drosophila models of circadian rhythms and possible uses of circadian rhythms to enhance cancer pharmaceutical treatments), also did some placement work researching the inclusion of Exon 14 as a promotor of invasion in DCIS cases of breast cancer University of Leicester 2007, Now full Time A level Biology Teacher. Groby College, Leicestershire.

yeah, you're right, i swallowed some bait there alright. Little bit of testosterone-fuelled chest-beating going on

To try and make a useful discussion from this though, Sandworm biology is probably impossible. I still havent managed to get over the generation of oxygen from heat. Without some crazy physics, energy --> mass in a biological system is going to be pretty much impossible, then producing oxygen, and ozone no less?!?. Unless is it released from silicon dioxide in sand, but the text suggests internal oxygen factories. Plus SiO2 formation is exothermic i think, and thus would be drive the other way due to heat from friction. (plus... internal fires?).

Other possibilities include some sort of exchange reaction, a la iron and sulphur reactions used by bacteria near deep sea vents. who knows?

And as for the remarkable abilities of the preworm body to absorb direct concentrated heat from a lasgun (which suggests far more than thermal radiation to me anyway? ...the lasgun-shield interaction) or thin layers deflecting knife thrusts yet being flexible?

Sounds pretty sci-fi to me. And dont even get me started on the who cillia penetrating flesh.

BUT at least frank introduced some sort of plausible time-scale for it, was sufficiently general and vague where necessary and obeyed simplicities like conservation of mass, rather than having leto transform into sandworm on demand?

And sorry again for the little outburst of pride (Although FWIW, Exon 14 was included in Tenascin-C, that sentence makes little sense without it. The results showed inclusion IS a factor in invasion and loss of cell adhesion, and work is now underway to target it therapeutically )

If anyone wants to talk science, dune or otherwise, please DO email/message me, i LOVE IT.

So I think you're right about getting oxygen from sand. The only other major source of oxygen I could think of would have been CO2 (kind of thinking of a plant respiration/photosynthesis cycle) but (delta)Hf CO2 = -393.5KJ/mol so that won't work either.

I had a glance through the relevant section in The Science of Dune but there is nothing about producing oxygen from the heat (that I could notice from a quick scan). However, the idea is brought up of the heat being difficult to disperse away from the body, and maybe being used to fuel chemical reactions...

Unless there is an organic (by that I mean produced in an organism) chemical that decomposes with heat to give oxygen, maybe that could work.

Another idea: respiration (I think) produces H2O2 and it decomposes naturally into water and oxygen, but then it is exothermic as well (plus you have the problem of producing water). And on that topic, if respiration the normal way (assuming sandworms do this) produces water then we are in trouble again, unless respiration produces it in such small amounts so as to have no effect.

(I LOVE IT too)

Ah English, the language where pretty much any word can have any meaning! - A Thing of Eternity

loremaster wrote:To try and make a useful discussion from this though, Sandworm biology is probably impossible.

I think FH made it impossible on purpose, not to make fools of anyone who tried to over-analyse his work, but to stress that this life-form was not understood. The impression i have, and i think it is purposeful, is that this Pardot guy squandered a respectable sum of imperial credits in his research, and he learned a lot from it, but he did not have yet the means to fully comprehend how it worked, where it got it's energy from and so on. I think Frank wanted it this way: not as impossible physics, but as physics that reflected a partial comprehension of the process at hand.

(Bash me all you want, Chig, it only entertains me.

Marcio (mrpsbrk) does believe in Lord Leto over all other wills and reasons

The term "native" usually refers to flora or fauna which weren't introduced by man. So yes, Kangaroos may have evolved from marsupials in China, but they are "native" to Australia because they were already living there when Australia was discovered. They weren't introduced by people.

From this definition, it's clear that the inkvine was not some variant of a plant from Earth. It was found on Giedi Prime when Giedi Prime was discovered. Since there's no way it could have evolved from any Earth plant and migrated to Giedi Prime itself, it must be non-Terrestrial in origin.

Regarding sandtrout, I tend to think that wherever they came from, either the sandworm cycle did not exist there, or it existed in a substantially different form from that of Arrakis, and did not include the existence of melange. Otherwise it becomes a problem as to why there's not two spice planets, why more people don't understand the sandworm life cycle, and why attempts to transplant the sandworms from Arrakis failed. It's even possible that the sandtrout evolved since their move to Arrakis, since extreme changes in environment can lead to rapid evolutionary change. Not *too* much change, though.

If you assume that Leto's apparent OM is correct, and that there are no intelligent space-faring aliens in the Duniverse, then the sandtrout must have been brought to Arrakis by some unknown group of humans. That means they have been there no longer than the discovery of space-folding (unless you assume some other form of vroom-vroom FTL, which pushes the date back another eight to ten thousand years, but no earlier than the 21st century CE ).

Who brought them, and from where, has obviously been forgotten. And as I've mentioned before, since planets seem to go boom rather often (Harmonthep, maybe Earth), the original planet could have been destroyed.

The question remains as to what environmental pressure could have resulted in the evolution of the sandworms. If the lifeforms are artificial, why would the worm stage be necessary? It's the sandtrout that produce the spice. (This assumes the spice was the ultimate objective.)

How is that foe block working? I assumed your permissions to see if I could check, but it still showed me his posts. And as an admin I cant foe block anyone. Does it tell you anything, like give you a blank post or something like that?